1. AIDS: African Americans Make Up the Majority of New Cases
For the last 20 years, prescient activists, epidemiologists, and ministers have been warning an essentially unmoved African America that HIV/AIDS was a crisis of epidemic proportions, one that could devastate our own neighborhoods much as it has devastated sub-Saharan Africa, where whole nations are now being reduced to numb lands of orphans and grieving elderly. The Cassandras in our midst have gone unheeded for a number of sadly predictable reasons: official (read: white) indifference, homophobia, a slow-moving, gerontocratic civil rights machine that prefers yesterday's battles to today's, the squeamishness of religious institutions, black media more interested in the culture beat and the glamour outrages of privilege ("I'm a black CEO and I can't get a cab!") than in covering the enduring, chronic disasters of poverty and disenfranchisement. While the crack epidemic of the '80s and the drug-war-fueled explosion in the prison-industrial complex popularized the notion that the black man is an endangered species with every "conscious" MC and spoken word artist in America, the idea that unprotected sex and an aversion to testing might kill more of us sooner has never really taken root among those claiming to speak truth to power for us, by us. Instead of the truth about AIDS/HIV we get indifference, or worse, virally replicating conspiracy theories — HIV is biological warfare, HIV doesn't cause AIDS, the drugs are worse than the disease.
A black doctor the A-List knows tells the following story: Soon after graduate school she took a job with a government agency (as in the US Federal) as an epidemiology fellow, where she immediately declared an interest in crunching numbers related to diseases that afflicted African Americans in the rural South. "Well," said her white supervisor, "your first stop should probably be with the folks working on AIDS." Our doctor friend was offended — AIDS was a gay disease, right? — and then, after she had grudgingly gotten her hands on the numbers, she was terrified. This was in the early '90s, and not very much has changed in our communal perception of the epidemic. Soon that group hallucination will become impossible to maintain. Last year African Americans officially made up the majority of the 43,000 new AIDS cases in America, meaning that while white gay men have been able to slow the spread of the disease in their own community, we have allowed it to grow un-impeded in ours. The news of rising infection rates is a horrifying portent of a future disaster, one that in the absence of a cure prefigures a community organized and structured by AIDS/HIV for generations, the disease and its ever-widening social impact a viral Middle Passage for the new millennium. Think of all the ways you reference the last impact of slavery as you imagine and talk about and proceed through the world, and replace the idea of bondage with the specter of slow death and ostracism, of contagion and silent infection. Every African American now alive will only get one chance to be surprised by what AIDS/HIV is doing to our community and by then it is often too late. Where were you when you realized the "gay plague" of the '80s had become as black as sickle cell?
2. Media: Senate Rescinds New FCC Rules
In a rare act of legislative defiance, the Republican-controlled Senate used a rarely invoked power of to "review" Federal regulations and set aside the FCC's recent weakening of rules on media ownership. The reviled work of FCC Chairman Michael "Talking Android" Powell the rules would have allowed already bloated media conglomerates like Africana's own ex-AOL Time Warner to become even more bloated. The procedure surprising put in play by the senior legislative body require that the House also rescind the FCC rules, something which House Majority Leader and Republican evildoer Tom Delay has declared "dead on arrival." We'll see. Remember: back when the bloated Junior Powell was gloating about his rule changes today's action would have seemed impossible. Read full story
3. Politics: You Want Fries with That?
One of the goofier side effects of this spring's mammoth overreaction to European opposition to our war in Iraq was the renaming, in both House and Senate cafeteries, of French fries and French toast — they became, in the insufferably Orwellian paradigm we now inhabit, Freedom fries and Freedom toast. One brave congresswoman has decided enough's enough — the renaming was linguistically silly at the time, but now that we're actively seeking not only French cooperation but French money, it's become politically nonsensical too. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Texas (and member of the Congressional Black Caucus), is so far the first House member to step up to the counter and demand her fries be French. The A-List applauds Congresswoman Jackson-Lee, and not just because we're fried food fans. You see, we've been wondering for a few months now why the new "patriotic" names bugged us so much, and it just came to us: "freedom" as a political modifier came into its own during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement, with the Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. "Freedom" is a good word to apply to every tool, concept and organization used in a brave fight against systematic oppresion; when used as a substitute for "French" in the names of snack- and breakfast-foods, it's a mockery. Read full story
4. Politics: Dueling Black Tie Affairs Pit GOP vs CBC
Wondering about the state of black leadership these days? The A-list scratches its collective head about this often — we become especially perplexed when we ponder the black star power on the GOP side of the aisle these days (Colin, Condi, etc) as compared to the best the Dems have to offer (Sharpton? Mosely Braun?). That's partly a false scenario — there are black Democrats with a real shot at future political stardom, from Harold Ford, Jr. to Jesse Jackson, Jr. — but partly the result of a kind of lingering malaise within the traditional halls of black Democratic power. All of which is why next week's gala celebrating major black republicans, slated to be held the same night as the CBC's big annual affair, feels like such a dig. But just remember, the next time somebody tries to convince you of what a big old beautiful tent those Republicans have: it's policy, not personalities, that count. Read full story
5. Crime: Yetunde Price, Venus and Serena's Older Sister Killed
There are times when even a stranger's tragedy makes you gasp. That's how we felt when we heard of the shooting death earlier this week of Yetunde Price, the 31-year-old sister of Venus and Serena Williams. We didn't know her — we don't even know Venus and Serena, though when they're crushing the opposition we sometimes jump up and yell as if they were our cousins — but we feel for her family. Then too, her death reminds us that she's just one of the thousands of people who die every year in just this way: shot by a gun in a bad neighborhood by a bad man. After one arrest Thursday, the police say they aren't certain just how many shooters there were, nor why exactly this shooting happened. The sad part is, beyond the victim's family relationship to fame, the story isn't really all that unusual. And that's the realization that makes us really, really sad. Read full story
6. Weather: Isabel Causes Rampant Cancellations, Needed or Not
Now, swooshing her wicked winds onto the North Carolina coast, by late Thursday Hurricane Isabel had caused mad property damage, significant flooding and left 300,000 North Crackalackians and Virginians without power. The A-List had kind of hoped that the storm would extend its wrath a little further north — we don't own property and we'd love a day off — but after seeing the havoc Isabel is causing down south, we'll settle for a good ole fair-weather sick day. With more than 1,300 flight cancellations, air and ground traffic delays, school closures, shut-down subway systems — you name it — folks are scared way too straight to get caught unhoused in the storm's windy wake. Well, the A-List is 'fraid, too. At least that's what we plan to say tomorrow before we cozy up with a nice breakfast, a laptop to read the A-List in final form and the cable guide for a rained-in Friday.
7. Culture: Ethiopian Treaure Finds its way Home
Take a trip to The Louvre in Paris and you'll get a good picture of just how much African art found its way to European capitals during colonization. Just a little over a year since Italy promised to return an obelisk stolen under Mussolini from the ancient city of Axum to Ethiopia, another story comes out about the spoils of colonialism, stolen property and belated returns. This time around, the piece of treasure is a handwritten copy of the biblical book of Psalms. Now, for a hot minute after we first read the article, we had a cultural/political/pro-black historical revisionist moment: we thought the manuscript was actually the original version of the Book of Psalms. Momentarily, our thin knowledge of ancient Ethiopian history and the history of the early African Ethioptic and Coptic churches seemed to brilliantly corroborate with what we thought were the facts of this story. Then, we read more and our moment of black history elevation was fatefully pierced. Although the manuscript, written in the ancient Ethiopian language of Geez and stolen from Emperor Theodore II at Magdala during an 1868 invasion, is valuable, it's only hundreds, not thousands, of years old. Still, we are glad to hear it's back where it belongs. Read full story
8. Craziness: Sisqo Unleashes the Dragon on Innocent Bystanders
Others might try and disguise recent reports of Sisqo's shooting at a parked car as the R&B; singer's long overdue introduction into the thuglife, but the A-List thinks otherwise. Not because we don't believe guys with blond or platinum colored hair can't get crunk, or that Mr. Thong, thong, thong, thong thong is about little else. It's because all reports thus far are leading the A-List to believe that Sisqo's been in the house for the past few months pulling a Rockwell ("I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me" — yes, the A-List is a child of the '80s). According to what we've read, Sisqo's neighbor's brother was parked outside waiting for his wife and a friend to come out of the house. Meanwhile, apparently, Sisqo was waiting by the window, on the lookout for someone who has allegedly been sending death threats to the singer and his girlfriend, Tera Thomas. After noticing that the car hadn't moved fast enough, that the neighbor's brother had made too many sudden moves, or whatever, Sisqo fired a shot that sent the wife and friend scurrying to the car. Witnesses say a Rambo-esque Sisqo fired even more shots as they fled. When police arrived on the scene, Sisqo naturally denied that he was the shooter, despite the shell casings found on his property, and the 9mm handgun and magazine clip officers found on the singer's kitchen counter. Are Sisqo and Tera trying to be the new Bobby and Whitney? The A-List doubts it, because Tera hasn't learned something that Whitney did years back: don't stand by your man when he's standing in his own sh-t. Because if you're both dirty, who's going to clean up the mess? Now both are waiting for the disgruntled members of Dru Hill to bail them out. Read full story
First published: September 19, 2003
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